Wikiquote talk:Votes for deletion/Mock the Week

Concern about closure
I'm a bit concerned about this closure. We didn't do several things here that we usually do that allow the community to see a better picture of how the discussion was evaluated:


 * We didn't count registered users and . Although neither has contributed much yet, they clearly did not come here solely for the vote or this article. While I was actively monitoring WQ:VFD, we always counted even infrequent registered editors as long as they showed some interest other than the page in question.
 * We didn't say anything to the anons who posted votes. We tend not to count anon votes, especially when they seem only interested in the single topic, but Voting is not yet an official policy, so we've typically tried to make clear how we're handling each discussion before we close it.
 * We made no attempt to correct or strike bad signatures (including Thejess's manual misspelling).

These omissions (not due to any one person, but to all of us regulars who monitor VfD) make it unclear whether these votes should be included in a tally. The omission of at least 2 registered users' "keep" votes lead me to disagree with Poetlister's assessment, although I understand her rationale. I'd like to take this to Deletion review, not just to make sure we complied with our existing policies and practices, but also to call attention to what we need to watching for during and at the end of a VfD. (Unfortunately, heaven only knows how soon I'll get to this!) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Full agreement with all of the above. The consensus, as far as I can see, wasn't "keep" so much as "trim"; and while it may have been a lot of things, it certainly wasn't "delete". I'm also not convinced of the wisdom of this policy of ignoring the opinions of anons - while they are largely ranting idiots, more than a few IP address bods raise perfectly valid concerns, and dismissing those concerns on the grounds that the poster hasn't registered/logged in/whatever seems contrary to everything the entire Wikiproject claims to be about. (I know I'm an IP person here - I'm Kinitawowi over on Wikipedia, though. I came across from their Wikiquote link and wondered what was going on...) 90.193.224.206 13:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That's one reason, IMHO, why we haven't made the current draft of Voting policy yet. We have a number of Wikiquotians who contribute significantly without a registered username. The cut-off line in such discussions is more plausibly based on whether the editor has done anything besides edit and discuss the page in question, although if they've done quite a bit of editing even only on the VfD target, their opinions would carry some weight. My main concern here is that it can be very difficult to sort this out unless we're conscientious about marking up and responding to problem posts or votes (i.e., anything that violates policy or otherwise might not be counted in opinion tallies). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Bite the newcomers
...It builds character. But seriously, if it's not a vote (good policy for many reasons, in my opinion) then don't call it a vote, call it a discussion and don't (openly) count noses. The burden on the closer is not a light one: to weigh the preponderance of the arguments, to recognize that two people (even cabalists experienced contributors) making the same point does not double its weight, and to discern whether a point is germane (which is where the cabal experienced contributors can help during the discussion). This last is the hardest, because criteria for inclusion at Wikiquote are considerably more subjective than at Wikipedia. (Story for another day.) Identifying and ignoring "votes" that amount to nothing more than "I like/dislike it" is the easy part, so don't let ballot-stuffers get under your skin. (No offense taken. I appreciate the difficulty.) ~ Ningauble 00:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't speak for anyone else, but I refer to VfDs whenever possible as "discussions", using the term "vote" only when I can't find a better word. I'll even say "tally", which isn't much different except that it doesn't necessarily carry the implicit connotation of "one person, one vote" that isn't quite what we're doing here, which is assessing the community opinion. By "community", we generally mean people who have contributed to more than just a single article (unless it's been substantial) or discussion page, and who follow basic rules and guidelines. And although most discussions involve only a small subset of the community, WQ:VFD is one of the most visible pages in Wikiquote, and the entire community is able to participate whenever it wants. We borrowed the term "votes for deletion" from Wikipedia, which eventually changed their terminology to reduce emphasis on "voting", but we're frequently a few years behind making similar changes that don't seriously impact our operations.


 * The real problem with this article was that it seemed a serious copyright violation, and I suspect that the regular contributors did not make a significant effort to reduce the problem. While the usual recommendation is to trim such articles, copyvio is a serious issue here — probably the single biggest problem Wikiquote faces — and whenever we can't find editors who are willing to counter the understandable desire of fans to cram everything they can into these articles, we are likely to choose to delete such problem articles. This is better than having people from the Foundation delete them (as has happened before), or worse yet, have the project shut down because someone complains to the Foundation (which happened to French Wikiquote for a year, after which they had to recreate their entire project from scratch). Facing these drastic penalties, VfD participants will often choose to sacrifice an article that the community shows little interest in keeping in line.


 * The ultimate solution is to encourage editors to stay within reasonable copyright limitations on all articles. This is an extremely difficult thing to accomplish. The more editors who tackle this task, the less we have to delete problem articles. The very fact that no new editor participating in this discussion seemed to be the least bit interested in learning basic Wikiquote practices, let alone copyright issues, probably tilted the balance toward deletion. We've had lots of experience with editors who show no interest in the problems that Wikiquote faces, only a desire to turn one of our articles into the place to go for huge, copyright-violating collections of quotes. Such people can be counted on to cause the project major problems that the handful of frequent editors who care about the entire project (the "cabal", you might say) cannot hope to contain without drastic action. The more editors we gain who will help prevent, not cause, these problems, the less drastic the actions can be. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It was not my intent to re-argue the original discussion. I was addressing the procedural question, where I had been named as representative of a class persons whose treatment under the procedure was at issue. That is, I meant to address the policy raised in this discussion, not to rehash a policy raised in that discussion.
 * In furtherance of this discussion, I will be brief: (1) there are workable alternatives to deprecating input from newcomers, (2) newcomer participation in discussion is a useful way to learn about consensuses, and (3) a loose, informal notion of "standing as a member" is an open invitation to argumentum ad hominem.
 * If the above is a little terse, please understand that I mean to be concise rather than brusque, though I may not be good at it. I felt impelled to comment because my pseudonym was called, but compelled to be brief because I do not wish to crash a private party, if such it be. ~ Ningauble 23:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC) (A noob, for now.)